Description

- Participating teachers must play an active role on school's PL committee and share new learning at school with administrators and peers.

- Participant must be willing to share artifacts that reflect practice and come to sessions prepared

- Participant must commit to attending all sessions

- This series builds on 2015-2016 session so particpants from last year may continue this arc of learning.

Objectives:

1)To develop teachers’ skill at using modeled writing, mentor texts and themselves as mentors to teach the qualities of writing.

2)To practice a variety of high-leverage strategies to develop writing across text types ( with a focus on Informative/ Explanatory writing AND Writing about Reading )

3)To engage participants in developing and strengthening best practices in Using Assessment in Instruction and component 3d to support writing conferences, student self and peer-assessment of themselves as writers.

Session Foci:

October: What does it really mean to teach writing ?

This session will expose teachers to the "best practices" for establishing a culture of writing in the classroom ; and allow them to identify the power of using models and mentors to spark students' interest and ability to write well. Teachers will experience a range of strategies for :

- Developing a "Writing Teacher's Toolkit" to support effective modeling and conferences

- Noticing, naming and trying a range of craft techniques that writers of Information and xplanatory texts use .

Participants will be required to identify three terrific student writers who they will track and celebrate across the year with this cohort. Particpants must bring student writing samples and artifacts to reflect the growth of these writers across the year.

December:Using Models, Critique and Descriptive Feedback

In December we will explore what effective student - centered writing lessons can look like in daily instruction. Teachers will view a model "Critique Lesson" to name qualities of writing that enhance a piece of informational text and to identify areas for improvement . Teachers will practicce providing writer's with specific and descriptive feedback to enhance writing pieces and plan a strategy based revision lesson in grade groups.

February:Making the Most of Text Structure

To support students to write informative /explanatory text well , teachers will explore a range of text structures that writers use to create a wide variety of informational texts. Some of the concepts we will cover are:

- How are informational texts structured?

- How does anticipating text structure and language patterns support comprehension for all readers, and develop the central ideas in text?

- How does noticing and naming these structures help us develop our own writing?

April: Leveraging the Writing Conference to Improve Writing Every Day and Everyday Writing!

In April, FSC Instructional Staff will visit selected participants' classrooms to support implementation of learning in cohort. Instructional staff will explore a range of strategies for supporting student self and peer assessment , along with modeling/co-teaching a writing conference designed to improve the writer in the moment.

May: Share Fair

Participants have been collecting and reflecting on their “Terrific Three” across the year.

For the final session, participants will be asked to create an artifact that reflects how each child has grown over the course of the year as a writer AND what instructional practiced supported the growth.This can take any format (written, graphic, digital etc.) Participants will reflect on their personal growth as a teacher of writing and make individual plans for own professional growth.